The process of regional integration in Europe has become a victim of its own success.  Its initial strategy was simple: let us remove barriers to exchange between member-states and then regulate the ensuing consequences collectively.  This combination of negative and positive policies within a limited number of functional domains has proven to be successful, perhaps, beyond original expectations.  

Taken to the extreme – an unprecedented and even barely imaginable extreme – the outcome for the EU polity could have been what this author has formally baptized elsewhere as a “condominio,” based on a systemic disjuncture between territorial and functional constituencies. Instead of one Europe with recognized and contiguous boundaries, there would have been many Europes.  Instead of a single Eurocracy accumulating organizationally distinct tasks around a single co-ordinating center, there would have been multiple regional agencies acting autonomously to solve common problems and produce distinct public goods.  Moreover, their dispersed, but probably overlapping, functional domains — not to mention their incongruent memberships — would probably result in competitive, even conflictual, situations and would certainly seem inefficient when compared with the clear demarcations of competence and hierarchy of authority that (supposedly) characterize existing national states.  While it seems unlikely that anyone would set out deliberately to create such a condominio — and no long-lasting historical precedents come to mind — one can imagine a scenario of divergent interests, distracted actors, improvised measures and compromised solutions in which it just could have emerged faute de mieux and institutionalized itself as the least threatening outcome. [1]

Any student of European integration, even such a hardcore advocate of neo-functionalism as the present one, would have to recognize that this is no longer a plausible scenario for the future of the Euro-polity. Not only has the process “spilled-over” into more contentious policy arenas with serious distributive and re-distributive implications, but more importantly the mere existence of such an effective decision-making mechanism at the trans-national level has caused both political elites and mass publics to presume that it can and, even, must be used to resolve conflicts and implement policies for which it was not originally designed.  To this altered outcome, I have provisionally given the label: consortio.

It is this shift in expectations – this “emergent property” of the process – that has motivated the writing of these initial Europolitan Papers.  Their central theme from the beginning has been the need to recognize that, faced with such a transformation, the institutions of the EU have to be re-designed, re-legitimated and re-tooled by making them into a distinctive polity with plausibly democratic mechanisms for the participation of citizens who, thereby, become capable of holding their rulers’ accountable for what they have chosen and implemented.  And, that the strategy for doing this would have to involve these regional institutions acquiring “own resources” and the capacity to implement them with “direct effect.”   

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My original intent was to try to recruit a “team” of essayists clustered around the European University Institute and its Robert Schuman Centre – collectively perhaps the greatest concentration of scholarly talent focused on analysing the process of European integration – who would have collectively carried forward this project into substantive topics about which I know very little. This proved to be impossible for practical reasons.

I, therefore, invite any reader who has something hopefully, critical to say about this initial set of essays and/or something hopefully, constructive to say about the many issues they do not address to respond via the invitation attached to the end of each EP.  Even better, why not write an EP of your own and send it to me at philippe.schmitter@eui.eu?

Together, we might just approximate the project that initially inspired my effort: The Federalist Papers. I very much doubt that we will be able to match the astonishing productivity (not to mention, quality) of the 85 essays that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay managed to put together, but the effort seems worthwhile. And, it will be even more challenging, since we do not (yet) have an explicit institutional design to explicate and advocate.

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PROPOSAL FOR A PROJECT ON THE EUROPOLITAN PAPERS

The project of carrying Europe “beyond the nation-state” and toward a more perfect regional union needs a new normative and strategic foundation.  The original objectives have been met and surpassed, so much so that they are being taken for granted by many of those who benefit from them.  Despite some persistent grumbling and occasional resistance, the inhabitants of the member states of the European Union can now enjoy the freedom of movement of goods, capital, labor and residence throughout their newly created region, and they can do so under conditions of “perpetual peace” – at least, among themselves.

What now justifies the existence of an even more integrated Europe with the inevitable, if partial or shared, transfers of sovereign authority that this would entail?  What benefits & costs, rights & obligations, opportunities & barriers should the citizens of Europe expect to acquire and face by doing this?  What adjustments in policy and institutions will have to be made to convince them that such a supra-national political authority will be capable of legitimately coping with the emerging challenges of the 21^st Century?

Such a project resembles the one that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay set for themselves when they wrote The Federalist Papers in 1787-8.  In the space of 8 months, they managed to write 85 essays of “practical political thought” that not only played a critical role in convincing a reluctant public to ratify the proposed constitution of the United States of America but also have continued to be cited and used by practitioners and theorists of democracy ever since.  While acknowledging that it will be very difficult to repeat this extra-ordinary intellectual feat – even by uniting the talents of scholars throughout Europe – it would seem worth attempting at this moment of multiple and coincident crises – in the process of European integration, in the evolution of liberal democracy,  in the state of the global capitalist economy … not to mention in the conditions of public health and the provision of external security.    

1-13. Introductory Essays: Why now? Crisis = Opportunity; Opportunity = Reform. These have been written and distributed and a few more at “in the works.” 

The following proposed chapters/essays more or less correspond to the topical outline of The Federalist Papers:

14. The Threatening External Context
15. The Threatening Internal Context
16. The Economic Advantages
17. The Insufficiency of Present Institutions
18. The Needed Powers of New Institutions
19. The Need for Common Defence
20. The Drafting and Ratification Process
21. The Powers to be Conferred
22. The Checks and Balances
23. The Institutions to be created
24. The Chambers of Representation
25. The Executive Power
26. The Judiciary

To which should be added:

1. Potential Sources of Own Resources
2. Potential Mechanisms of Direct Effect
3. Potential Inclusion of a Social Dimension
4. Potential Development of Multiple Over-lapping Identities
5. Anything you can think of
6. Conclusion: Why bother? (I may try to write this … eventually)

Philippe Schmitter
Emeritus Professor
European University Institute

Comments

Readers are welcome to send comments to egpp@eui.eu. Comments will be reviewed before publication below and will include the name of the author.

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[1] P.C. Schmitter, “Examining the present Euro-polity with the help of past theories,” in G. Marks, F. Scharpf, P. C. Schmitter & W. Streeck (eds.). Governance in the European Union  (London: Sage Publications, 1996), pp. 121-150.